


A Love Story

by blue_jack



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, First Time, Humor, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-04-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:06:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_jack/pseuds/blue_jack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Steve met Tony was during a section he had for art.  He used the term “met” loosely, but it was easier to explain to Peggy and Bucky later than “nearly saw him naked.”  Currently on HIATUS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aliassmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliassmith/gifts).



> Sorry, guys, this fic is currently on hiatus. I'm just not feeling the motivation to write this or anything else right now. I sincerely apologize to all the people who have been following this, and I hope to get back to writing soon.

The first time Steve met Tony was during a section he had for art. He used the term “met” loosely, but it was easier to explain to Peggy and Bucky later than “nearly saw him naked.”

Steve had just finished setting up all his materials at his easel when the model walked in, wearing a white terrycloth robe, flip flops and sunglasses of all things. He’d realized that he’d be drawing nudes when he’d signed up for the class, but the _first day_? He didn’t blush, because that was something the old Steve did, but he had to stare furiously at the bowl of fruit on the stool in the center of class that he’d thought was that day’s subject to regain his composure.

Of course, that plan was ruined when the model picked up the bowl and took its place on the stool, heels casually hitched on the bottom rung so his knees were akimbo, and it was only by luck and some determined clinging of his robe that kept Steve from getting an eyeful. Old Steve or new, he couldn’t stop himself from flushing then, heat spreading across his face so fast that his ears buzzed slightly from the sudden change in temperature.

The guy tilted his head to the side, and Steve realized to his embarrassment that he was looking straight at him. He could only hope that the sunglasses kept him from seeing just how red Steve had gotten, and his shoulders tensed with an instinctive urge to cringe. He didn’t look away though. Not even when the model peered at him over the sunglasses. Not even when he smiled and winked, making the blush that had started to fade come back with a vengeance.

“ _Tony_?”

“Pepper!”

He jumped down from the stool, robe flaring for a second (although the fruit bowl in his hand blocked any kind of view), and Steve’s heart did a weird twisty thing at the smile that appeared on his face, wide and bright and full of mischief.

“What are you _doing_ here?” a tall, gorgeous redhead demanded, hands on her hips and a forbidding frown on her face. Tony wasn’t daunted if the arm he slid around her waist was anything to go by.

“I just wanted to see what class was so important that you couldn’t go with Happy and me to that coffee shop in Central Square. It’s interesting, I’ll give you that,” he said, ignoring her sigh and escorting her around the edges of the room to examine the various pieces of art that were drying. Steve noticed he wasn’t the only one watching them, the whole class turning to follow their progress. 

“Plenty of beautiful things to look at.” Tony’s eyes seemed to rest on him for a second, but then they were sweeping past. “But still, it’s not as fun as spending time with your best friend who came all the way to your campus to visit you—”

“Tony, you’re a ten minute shuttle from here.”

“You know how I feel about public transportation, Pepper.”

Even from where he was sitting, Steve could see her roll her eyes. “Will you get out of here?” she asked, pulling away. “The professor is going to be here any minute, and I’d rather not get in trouble on my first day.”

“Fine, fine,” he said, adjusting his robe, which had started to gape open in a distracting display of skin and shadows. “I’m going. Happy and I will just have to drown our sorrows in caffeine. Lots of caffeine. So much caffeine that I might not be able to sleep for days on end, and then I’ll have to call you in the middle of the night and serenade you with a rousing rendition of—”

“ _Tony_.”

“Leaving.” He executed a courtly bow, offered another one to the room in general, then walked to the door. Steve had a second to feel a stab of disappointment that Tony wasn’t going to be the model after all and then be embarrassed by that realization, when Tony turned, and with a theatrical flourish, he flashed the room, revealing lean abs, strong thighs, and a pair of tight blue boxer briefs—

“Put that thing away!” Pepper ordered. From the muffled sound of her voice, it seemed like she was covering her face, but Steve couldn’t tear his eyes away to check.

—and then he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, this is so short, but I'm trying to drum up the enthusiasm to make myself finish this. I have several pages written, but ugh. Why so hard, college AU, why so hard? 
> 
> The idea though is that posting is a commitment, right? So posting the first part should be a kick in the pants to write more.
> 
> That's the idea anyway. *cough, cough*
> 
> This is a gift fic for aliassmith. It was actually the first Steve/Tony fic I started. Crazy, right? Anyway, she was a lot of the reason I fell in love with them, so I felt that deserved some token of appreciation, no matter how unfinished it is.
> 
> Also, I realized I start a lot of fics with "the first time...." It's a problem, I know.
> 
> Finally, the title is a nod to the movie _Love Story_ which takes place at Harvard, but this isn't based on the movie itself.


	2. Chapter 2

After an introduction like that, Steve had thought Tony would show up at the class all the time. He’d been half annoyed and half looking forward to seeing what other kind of stunts Tony would pull, because whatever else a person could say about him—that he acted inappropriately, that he had better things to do with his time than interrupt a class at a school that he didn’t even attend, that he filled out a pair of boxer briefs really, really well—Steve doubted that many people could say he wasn’t amusing.

But the second section went by, then the third and the fourth, and Tony never came back. Which…he wasn’t disappointed, he was…he wasn’t disappointed. And he obviously wasn’t going to approach Pepper and ask her about her crazy friend considering he’d only interacted with her once in the class so far, and that had been because he accidentally splashed her with some cadmium red, which, great, Steve, way to make a first impression. 

He wasn’t supposed to have met Tony. It’d only been a fluke of luck, they hadn’t even exchanged words, and well, he wasn’t missing anything when it came down to it. Tony had just been a blip on the radar for a few seconds, and that was that.

So he couldn’t explain why his heart started pounding when he went to the makeshift bar during an Eliot House party and found Tony acting as bartender.

“What can I get for—well, _hello_.” Tony smiled, sliding a plastic cup under what looked like a coffee machine on steroids. He absently jabbed two buttons, causing blue liquid to come out. “Here you go, my dear,” he said, handing the cup to the girl who’d been waiting for her drink but never taking his eyes off of Steve. “And what can I get for you, sailor?”

“Um…” He blinked, remembering the reason he’d come up was to get Peggy a drink and not to ogle the bartender.

“Let me guess. You want a Slippery Nipple, right?”

“I…excuse me?” Steve asked, not sure he’d heard correctly. 

“No? Then how about a Slow Comfortable Screw?” Tony asked, the twinkle in his eyes turning outrageous, and Tony couldn’t actually be flirting with him by way of sexually-themed cocktails, could he?

“Actually, now that I think about it, you look like a guy who’d prefer Sex on the Beach,” Tony said, and why yes, yes, he could.

“Afraid not,” Steve said, shaking his head in mock-sadness, his lips twitching.

“Mmmm, well I could give you a Screaming Orgasm instead. Come on, who says no to a Screaming Orgasm?”

Steve rolled his eyes, even while he could feel his cheeks start to warm.

“Well, then, If nothing else, I can do a mean Blow Job,” Tony said, looking for all the world as if he expected bad drink jokes to win Steve over, and Steve smiled outright, because it was totally working. 

“I bet you can,” Steve murmured, blushing hard by that point and not even caring. He stepped closer to the bar, and told himself it was because it was hard to hear over the loud music and not because of any other reason. 

“Sorry, what was that?” Tony asked, leaning closer as well, but the last thing Steve was going to do was repeat himself.

“I’m actually here to get a drink for a friend.”

“Oh, well then, why didn’t you say so?” Tony popped back up, still grinning, but his expression was no longer slyly teasing, and Steve’s eyebrows furrowed as he wondered if he’d said something wrong. “That means bartender’s choice,” Tony told him, sliding a cup under the dispenser and pushing buttons on the machine.

“But Peggy wanted—”

“Bartender’s choice, I said!” Tony gestured at the machine, which was making a gurgling noise. “I can’t let an opportunity to show this baby off just pass me by! Made it myself. It has over fifty drinks preprogrammed into it, can crush ice, and makes a killer Irish Coffee, if I do say so myself.” He took the full cup and presented it to Steve with a flourish. “Voilà. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.”

“Oh, am I supposed to pay?” he asked, patting his pockets and wondering if he’d even brought his wallet with him. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize. Let me—”

“You can just make it up to me through sexual favors. Kidding! Kidding,” Tony said with a wink. “Although, if you insist…no, no, no, the drinks are free. Don’t let anyone tell you any differently. This one’s for you, by the way,” he said, placing another drink on the counter in front of him.

“But I didn’t—”

“Bartender’s choice, remember? Although, to be fair, I feel I should warn you that this is a Tony Special, so the hangover is going to be—”

“Oh, I don’t get drunk.”

“You don’t drink?” Tony asked, eyebrow going up like he’d encountered some strange creature previously unknown to man.

“No, I drink. Sometimes,” he added, wanting to be honest. “I just can’t get drunk. I’ve tried. Or at least, other people have tried to get me drunk. But it’s never worked.”

“Never?”

“No, my body metabolizes it too fast, I guess.”

Tony looked him up and down. “Why, if that isn’t a challenge, I don’t know what is,” he said, the playful tone back, and Steve knew he was in trouble when he felt relief flooding him. But then, he’d known he was in trouble before that, so what did it matter? 

“Excuse me, but I’ve been waiting for a while now,” an embarrassed voice said behind him. “Do you mind if I...?”

Steve turned around and realized he’d been holding up the line.

“If you can be patient for one minute longer,” Tony said, flashing the girl a charming smile that just got wider as she smiled back hesitantly, “I’ll—”

“Thanks for the drinks,” Steve interrupted, ignoring the selfish part of him that wanted to see what Tony would’ve concocted and how long he would’ve kept trying. He picked up his cups and stepped away from the bar. “Sorry about that,” he apologized to the girl.

“What are you doing? I was going to—”

“I guess you’ll just owe me a rain check,” he said lightly, taking a few steps backwards and hoping he wasn’t accidentally stepping on anyone’s feet. 

Tony laughed. “I guess I will. Come back later, alright?”

“Okay,” he promised, grinning, butterflies swooping in his stomach.

Except one of Peggy’s friends started feeling sick fifteen minutes later, and he and Peggy walked her back to her room. But then Peggy decided to keep her company until one of her roommates got back, and Steve didn’t want Peggy to have to go back by herself, even if the campus was well-lit and nothing ever happened, so they both stayed. By the time he finally made it back, Tony had already left. And even though Steve loitered around for another hour until the party broke up, Tony never reappeared.


	3. Chapter 3

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, looking down at his Evolutionary Biology book. It’d been Bucky’s idea to fulfill their science Core requirement with a course most students referred to as Sex class, but that was Bucky for you. “I’m reading this week’s assignment.”

“You’re reading it _now_ ,” Peggy said, tapping the top of the page, “but you’ve been staring over there for a good five minutes. And considering the view outside the Science Center hasn’t changed substantially in the past few weeks, I have to wonder what—or dare I say, who—you’re staring at.”

Steve lifted his eyebrows in his best innocent expression, but he’d known Peggy since freshman year when they’d lived next door to each other, and she wasn’t buying it.

“Spill it, Rogers. You know I’m going to get it out of you eventually.”

His lips quirked in a rueful smile. It was true. What Peggy wanted, she typically got. It was one of the things he liked so much about her.

“Do you remember,” he began, fiddling with the corner of the page he was on, “when I told you about the guy who pretended to be a model in my art section?”

“Naked guy? Definitely.”

“He wasn’t naked.”

“He flashed you.”

“He flashed _the class_. _And_ he was wearing underwear.”

“Skimpy underwear.”

“It wasn’t skimpy,” he said, and there it was, there was the blush that seemed to accompany any and all thoughts about Tony, darn it. “His . . . groin . . . was completely covered.”

“Covered _tightly_.”

“Covered in the way that any underwear covers a man.”

“So covered snugly.”

“Alright, snugly, fine, I’ll give you that.”

“Snugly enough that he might as well have been naked. Thus, naked guy.”

“But he wasn’t naked!”

“Naked guy.”

“Peggy.”

“Naked. Guy.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” he said, because they were getting off-track, and obviously Peggy remembered the story. Besides, he was starting to think about Tony naked, and now really wasn’t the time and place. “I was just trying to figure out if that was Tony over—”

He broke off at the slow, wicked smile that spread across her face. 

“You know what? Forget I said anything.”

“Oh no, Steve,” she crooned. “Don’t be bashful now. His name’s _Tony_ , is it?”

“Maybe?” he said finally after squirming a little. It wasn’t that he hadn’t planned on telling her. He told Peggy everything. Although, on second thought, he might have kept the whole staring-at-the-backs-of-guys-of-a-certain-height-who-had-brown-wavy-hair-and-mentally-urging-them-to-turn-around thing to himself. Still, Peggy, for all her teasing—and she would tease him forever for falling for someone he’d only met once and just for a few minutes at that (“sometimes I think you’re right out of a Disney movie, Steve, I swear”)—would support him no matter what. He’d just been waiting to find out if Tony liked him back at all before confiding everything to her so he didn’t seem quite so . . . eager ( _desperate_ his mind supplied).

“And how did you discover that fact?”

“Well, Pepper said his name in class.”

“And . . .” Peggy prompted, somehow knowing there was more.

“And . . . well, he shows up around campus sometimes.”

“How many times?”

“Twice.” His shoulders scrunched up. “Once at the Eliot House party last week.”

“No wonder you wanted to go back so much!” She gasped. “Oh no! Was he—”

“He’d already left by the time I got back. But there’s no reason to think I won’t see him again,” he hastily reassured her. “Like I said, he pops up around school, and I know he has friends here.” Besides, Tony owed him a rain check, and he’d want to let Steve collect, wouldn’t he?

“So that’s not him?” she asked, glancing over at the group he’d been watching.

“No, I wondered for a second, but . . .” He shrugged.

“I see,” she said, tapping her chin with her finger. “Well, that’s a shame, but I can’t believe that you would’ve seen him twice already and then not bump into him again. Harvard’s not that big after all.” She met his eyes. “You like him? A lot?”

“Yes.” He let out a huff of laughter. “Yes, I do.”

“And he’s nice?”

“I’ve only talked to him for maybe five minutes, but he seems to be.”

“Hmm, well, he obviously has a sense of humor from that stunt he pulled. Good-looking?”

Steve sighed. “Very.”

“Really? I can’t wait to meet him,” she said, grinning. “Smart?”

“Brilliant. He made some sort of drink machine with preprogrammed settings and everything.”

“Ah ha, tech geek. Does he go to MIT?”

“Um, I don’t know. Like I said, we just talked for five minutes or so.”

“What’s his last name? I know people in the registrar’s office . . .” She trailed off as she took in his expression. “You don’t know his last name.”

“We spoke for five minutes!”

“But his last name—”

“Five minutes, Peggy!”

“Well, what _do_ you know about him then?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s friends with Pepper in my class?”

“Oh, Steve.” She shook her head. “I don’t suppose you exchanged phone numbers or anything? Email addresses? Twitter accounts? Anything? You did _flirt_ with him, didn’t you? You didn’t pull your stoic face out? You used the shy, bashful, take-me-now smile instead, right?”

“I—I— _what_? I don’t have a—”

“Well, there’s no help for it then. You’re going to have to ask Pepper for his phone number.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“It’d be too weird.”

“It wouldn’t be _that_ weird.”

“ _Really_ weird, Peggy.”

“Fine, then _I’ll_ ask her.”

“You’re can’t ask for me!”

“ _Why not_?”

“No. Just, no.”

“Yes!”

“No!”

She took a deep breath. “You are so stubborn. Fine. _Fine_. But next time you see him, you’re going to get his last name. _And_ his phone number. I might even make you carry around a questionnaire. Do you understand?”

“Yes—”

“ _Do you understand_?”

“I said yes! You know, this is my love life after all. I should be able to—”

“I just have one question for you.”

“What?” he asked warily.

“Does he know _your_ name?” 

He opened his mouth. And then closed it. “Okay, point.”


	4. Chapter 4

Fall was always busy, what with football and the start of the new semester. He had too much to do to spend time thinking about Tony, especially since it was getting more and more obvious that Tony wasn’t thinking about him.

He hadn’t seen Tony since the party, and he’d been looking, like, a lot, and no matter what Peggy said about Tony having to be crazy to pass up a chance to get to know him better, it boiled down to the simple fact that Steve had no way of getting in touch with him (Pepper had transferred out of his section the week he’d started to seriously consider approaching her, so there went that idea), but Tony knew where he could find him. He just hadn’t wanted to. And Steve was a big enough boy that he could accept that.

If one or two sketches of Tony happened to sneak into his notebook (thick charcoal strokes to capture the intensity of his eyes, the line of his jaw, to try to mimic the helter-skelter nature of his hair), well, he was an interesting subject, and it didn’t hurt anyone except himself anyway.

By the time Harvard-Yale rolled around, he was mostly over him. He was. Not to say he didn’t think about him once or twice or even five times, but Steve had decided to stop mooning over a guy he didn’t even really know.

“You free after the game, Steve?” Bucky asked, taking one last look in the mirror before they headed out. “I’ve got someone I want you meet. Really pretty, and she was asking about you last weekend.”

Bucky was a member of one of the final clubs, which meant that he was always meeting girls and trying to set Steve up with them, worried about his monkish ways. Usually, Steve turned him down, because the type of girl who was interested in Bucky—flirty, charming, flashy Bucky—wasn’t the type who liked him. But maybe . . .

Not that he was hoping Tony would magically show up at the party like he’d had at the last one. Although it _could_ happen. But yeah, no, that wasn’t what he was thinking about. 

But maybe it was time Steve started trying to find someone else. It couldn’t hurt, right? And maybe, maybe it would even help.

“Thattaboy. You won’t regret it,” Bucky said, punching him lightly on the shoulder.

\-----

Harvard-Yale was a crazy experience. Steve remembered the last time they’d gone to New Haven during sophomore year, and he’d thought it’d been hectic then, but it seemed like it’d gotten ten times worse since. Most of the student body didn’t care about football, but it was as if the whole university had followed them to New Haven, crimson everywhere, and it was a rush to hear so many people screaming, to get drawn into a rivalry that meant nothing and everything.

When Harvard stormed the field—and how could they not? Twelve seconds left in the game, down 7-10, sixty yards to go, and then one last desperate pass, his arm aching with the force of it—Steve was facing their side of the stadium, the triumphant cries of his teammates a deafening roar in his ears. He didn’t know what made him look up from the hordes of student dropping down onto the field, but he did, straight to someone standing on top of a bleacher with his hands in his pockets, sunglasses on his face.

Steve stumbled as one of his teammates crashed against him, arms wrapping around him and lifting him off his feet. He tried to twist around and see if it were really Tony, but the crowd was surging forward, and his teammates were throwing themselves on him, and it was impossible to find one person with all the chaos. 

_Damn_ it. 

He tried not to let it get him down, tried to get caught up in the excitement of winning the game, but even with all the cheers and his teammates pounding on his back, it wasn’t the same anymore.

\-----

By the time he got out of the shower, he’d finally convinced himself that it couldn’t have been Tony. Just, no way. Obviously, his mind had conjured up an image of Tony, because, well, for whatever reason, but it hadn’t been him. End of story.

Except when he walked into the main locker room, dripping wet and only covered by towel, there was Tony—Tony who shouldn’t have been at the game let alone in the locker room, Tony who was peering over his sunglasses and staring at Steve in a way that was going to get them arrested for public indecency if Steve’s cock got a vote—standing next to Thor.

Well, crap.

“Friend Steve!” Thor called, and there was no help for it. He was going to have to go over there and try to pretend he wasn’t virtually naked in front of the man he’d been lusting after for the past few months. If that didn’t have “potential for humiliation” written all over it, he didn’t know what did. 

“Great game, Thor!” he said, walking over and wondering if bunching the towel in front of him would be too obvious. 

“The gods favored us this day,” Thor said, grinning broadly. He was an international student. Everyone on the team had learned to roll with it by that point. "Your valiant efforts on the field were a shining example to us all," Thor continued, clapping him on the back, but Steve had been playing with him for months, so he was braced for it, barely rocking from the friendly blow.

"Yeah, Steve, I'm impressed. You were incredible out there," Tony said, pushing his glasses high on his head. Steve found himself looking at Tony, standing there in his designer jeans and T-shirt, and he smiled helplessly. It was the first time Tony had ever called him by his name—ha, Peggy!—oh, wait, Thor had just said it, hadn’t he? 

Still, Tony had said he was _incredible._

He so wasn’t over him. It was actually embarrassing how not over Tony he was.

“Thank you,” he said, acutely conscious of how the chill in the room was making his nipples erect and how _close_ Tony was standing. It became ten times worse when Thor shouted Bruce’s name, walking over to congratulate him and leaving the two of them alone together. He forced himself not to fidget. “We have a great team this year. I feel really honored to be a part of it.”

“I bet you do,” Tony murmured, stepping that much closer, and yeah, he was in so much trouble.

“I’ve never had the privilege of playing with such strong guys before. Thor’s a powerhouse, and Peter—I mean he pulls out these amazing acrobatics sometimes to catch the ball, and once he has it, it’s like it’s glued to his hands. Then there’s the Hulk, um, sorry, Bruce, he plays both defense and offense, and he can smash through any line,” he said, and he knew he was babbling, but he was naked and Tony was _right there_

Tony shook his head, an amused look on his face, but at least he stayed where he was. “It’s a fantastic team, I completely agree; one of the best Harvard’s ever had.”

“Do you—do you follow football a lot? I mean, you don’t go to Harvard, right?”

“Nope. That is, I don’t go to Harvard. I do follow football, however. Some football anyway. Any sport where the players wear such tight pants always gets my vote. Although a lot can be said about what you’re wearing now, too,” he said, leering cheerfully, and from the way he was looking at Steve, he might as well have not been wearing the towel at all.

He tried, he really did, but—

Tony made a low humming sound. “I wondered the first time I saw you how far down that blush went.”

“I should get dressed,” Steve muttered, heading back to his locker, his heart doing weird flips in his chest because Tony had thought about him, and from the sound of it, in a decidedly not-innocent way.

“Not on my account, I hope,” Tony said, following him, and he didn’t know if Tony was actually staring at his butt, or if it was just wishful thinking on his part.


	5. Chapter 5

“So what are you doing here?” he asked, grabbing another towel from the stack as he walked by. He draped it across the back of his neck, grateful for the additional covering, and slowly started pulling his things down from his locker. He wondered how long he could drag out the packing process before he had to get dressed. In front of Tony. Which meant he had to get naked. In front of Tony. 

Oh boy. 

“Gotta support Harvard during Harvard-Yale. Go Crimson! _In vino veritas_ and all that,” Tony said, straddling one of the benches so he was facing Steve’s side.

“I’m pretty sure it’s just ‘ _veritas’_ actually,” Steve corrected dryly.

“Yeah, well, you’d know,” Tony said, waving his hand dismissively.

“And I didn’t mean what are you doing at the game. I assumed you came with Pepper. I meant, what are you doing in the locker room? I’m surprised they let you back here.”

“It’s all about the people you know.” Tony shrugged. “Or the things that you know about the people you know,” he said, grinning. “Speaking of which, quarterback, huh?”

“What, doesn’t it look like I could be a football player?” He managed not to flex his muscles, but he might have sucked in his stomach a little. Steve didn’t know how he’d gone from making plans to meet someone after the game in the hopes of forgetting his current crush, to standing around nearly naked, flirting with said crush while trying to figure out how to keep his dignity and modesty intact—although the dignity might be a lost cause—but he had, and Peggy was going to laugh until she _cried_. 

“Oh, I don’t think you need to worry about that at all,” Tony drawled, but his tone had gotten slightly cooler.

Steve flashed him a hesitant smile before reaching up to dry his hair. He didn’t—Tony gave off so many mixed signals, and he didn’t know which ones to take seriously, and maybe . . . .

He didn’t _want_ to give up on Tony. He just didn’t know if Tony had already given up on him.

“So what other deep, dark secrets are you hiding?”

“Me? I’m an open book,” he said, peering under his arm at Tony. “You’re the one who’s so mysterious. I mean, I could count the number of things I know about you on one hand and still have fingers left over.”

“Yeah?” Tony said, batting his eyelashes. “Do tell. What do you know about me? All good things, I hope?”

He let the towel settle back around his neck, holding on to the ends more tightly than strictly necessary. “Um, your name’s Tony. I don’t know your last name. You’re friends with Pepper and someone named Happy. You don’t attend Harvard. And you can make an impressive drink machine.” 

“And I like football and men in tight pants, so really, you know six things.”

“Okay,” he laughed. “Six things.”

“See? That’s not so bad. Epic friendships have started on less.”

“Really?” he asked and took a deep, fortifying breath. “So you think this,” he said, gesturing between the two of them and looking straight into Tony’s eyes, “will be epic?”

“Maybe,” he said lightly, which wasn’t an answer at all. “But what about you?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s not like I know much about you either. I bet I can guess though,” Tony said, tapping his lip. “You carry that whole mantle of responsibility on your shoulders, so you’re the oldest of oh, let’s say seven children. Raised on a farm in the Midwest somewhere and fed lots of corn in order to grow big and brawny. You were valedictorian, captain of the football team and Prom King, and when you came here, you left a trail of broken hearts behind you. How’d I do?”

He shook his head, chuckling at Tony’s rendition of his life. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t quit your day job. I grew up in Brooklyn, no brothers or sisters, and I was really scrawny when I was younger, so no football, or even prom for that matter, and the only girl who noticed when I left was my mom.”

“Really?” Tony looked him up and down, slowly this time, his eyes holding a heat and weight which had been absent seconds ago. “Scrawny? Well you, my friend, did an excellent job of growing up.”

“Thank you,” he said, and if it was the last thing he did, he was going to go a whole conversation with Tony without turning beet red. Today was not that day however. “Fair’s fair though. Seriously, what _do_ you know about me?”

“Hmm? Ah, well in the interest of transparency, I suppose I _could_ lay my cards out on the table. I know your name’s Steve Rogers,” Tony said, ticking off his fingers as he went along. “You’re Harvard’s star quarterback. You’re a senior—the announcer kept crying over how you’re leaving next year—but you’re taking a relatively introductory art class, so it’s an elective and not your major. You have a gorgeous girlfriend named Peggy.” He gave him two thumbs up. “Congrats on that, by the way. And finally, you can’t get drunk, or so you say, although I plan on testing that one day to see if it’s true. So, see? Six and six. We’re even.”

Steve blinked. “I don’t—I’m not dating anyone,” he said, and he couldn’t stop the way hope started creeping up his spine. Was that why—? “Peggy’s just a friend.”

Tony raised both eyebrows slowly. “Is she?”

“Stark!” a deep voice boomed, making the both of them jump. “What are you doing in my locker room? You know you don’t belong back here!”

“Coach Fury!” Tony said, standing quickly as Coach came into the room. 

Steve realized they were the only ones still there. Somehow the rest of the team had left without him noticing. 

“Imagine seeing you here! Although, technically, it’s Yale’s locker room, not yours.” He cleared his throat at the look Coach gave him. “Oh look, is that the time? Well, it’s been fascinating, Steve. Extremely edifying as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, I’ve got things to do, places to be and all that, but—”

“ _Out_.”

“Right. Catch you later, Steve!”

He watched Tony leave before smiling apologetically at Coach Fury. “I’ll be ready in one minute, Coach,” he said, but the whole time he was getting dressed, his thoughts weren’t on the laps Coach was surely going to make him run for being late, but on Tony’s expression when he’d told him he wasn’t dating Peggy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for how long it's been since the last update. I had a birthday fic to write.


End file.
